Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
Academic journal ‘Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education’ has featured Shenila Khoja-Moolji‘s paper on ‘Envisioning an alternative to the neoliberalization of education in the global south: the Aga Khan’s philosophies of education’
Paper is available at:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01596306.2015.1113508?journalCode=cdis20
Abstract
Studies in education over the past decade highlight the hijacking of educational agendas by neoliberal rationalities and logics. I illustrate these processes in relation to transnational campaigns for girls’ education, where the purpose of ‘education’ is reduced to producing wage-based labor and an accumulation of skills that enhance labor flexibility. ‘Girls’ are primarily articulated as economic actors: potential consumers, labor, and/or entrepreneurs. This reduction of individuals and social projects to economic logics calls for counter-discourses. I delineate one (among many possible) alternate framing of education by foregrounding muslim epistemologies. I present the views of the Shi’i muslim leader, His Highness the Aga Khan, about education, its purpose, and its entanglement with international development. Through a close reading and coding of over 30 public speeches and interviews of the Aga Khan between 1994 and 2015, I outline three salient themes pertaining to self, community, and meaningful life that cast doubt around the reduction of education to economic logics.
Ismailimail 